This refers to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight with healthy eating and physical activity

This refers to losing and gaining weight over and over again.

It is the ultimate brand name in structured, weight loss-oriented diets. Weight Watchers has been around since the 1960s, and boasts a legion of enthusiastic followers. The cornerstone of this program is its points system. Every food is allotted a certain number of points, and you're allowed to eat a certain number of points a day. The system is designed to achieve a calorie deficit of 1,000 calories a day, meaning you'll lose two pounds a week if you are faithful and stick with tracking your points. No foods are off-limits, and the Weight Watchers website catalogs 40,000 foods with their point values (no points for fiber-loaded fruits and veggies, high points for things like candy).

The biggest benefit of Weight Watchers is the support network that encourages members to attend in-person meetings a few times a month. Of course this is how the company makes money. A monthly pass to attend unlimited in-person meetings is $39.95, which also includes access to their eTools, or you can pay as you go. Meetings are $12 - $15 per week, with a one-time $20 registration fee. To only follow the meetings online, a three-month plan is $65. Weight Watchers teaches their participants how to choose between nutritionally dense foods and those with little value. This is a long-term lesson that can stick with you, should you decide to leave the program. Exercise is encouraged, plus you get bonus points (that allow you to eat more) for enough activity.

By-product of cheese manufacture. May or may not be vegetarian, depending on the type of rennet used. The powder is often added to processed foods.

All fresh, frozen, canned, and dried fruit but not fruit juice.

Grains and grain products made from the entire grain seed, usually called the kernel, which consists of the bran, endosperm, and/or germ. If the kernel has been cracked, crushed, or flaked, it must retain nearly the same relative proportions of bran, endosperm, and germ as the original grain in order to be called whole grain. Many, but not all, whole grains are also a source of dietary fiber.

While natural, unmonitored environments can expose fish to pollutants, wild-caught fish, particularly salmon,-often contain lower levels of PCBs than farm-raised. The Marine Stewardship Council seal indicates that fishing practices were sustainable.

See Sugar Alcohol.

Zinc is an essential mineral with a wide variety of functions within the human body. Zinc is a component of over 300 enzymes needed to repair wounds, maintain fertility in adults and growth in children, synthesize protein, help cells reproduce, preserve vision, boost immunity, and protect against free radicals, among other functions.

In some trials, zinc lozenges have reduced the duration of colds in adults, though they have not been demonstrated to be effective in children. The ability of zinc to shorten colds may be due to a direct, localized antiviral action in the throat. A small, preliminary trial has also shown zinc sulfate to be effective for contact dermatitis, a skin rash caused by contact with an allergen or irritant.

Zinc can reduce the body?s ability to utilize copper, another essential mineral. The ability to interfere with copper makes zinc an important therapy for people with Wilson?s disease, a genetic condition that causes copper overload. In healthy individuals, however, this effect is best offset by copper supplementation.